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The following is a story primarily about implementing reverse-angle parking on Dean Keeton, but the net result will be the installation of bike lanes.
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/n … rking.html
City to put a new spin on angled parking
'Back-in parking,' while awkward at first, said to be safer for motorists, cyclists.By Ben Wear
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, July 26, 2009The City of Austin and University of Texas are about to shift your parking paradigm into reverse.
In August, the city will jump on a national trend and install reverse-angle parking, sometimes called "back-in parking," on a section of Dean Keeton Street just north of the LBJ Library and University of Texas Law School. Soon thereafter, the university is likely to follow suit with parking on San Jacinto Boulevard and Robert Dedman Drive.
The lines of the parking spaces would point forward on the street rather than toward the curb, as with traditionally angled parking.
A driver would have to go just past the parking space, then back in to it while swinging the steering wheel to the right. The idea is that it is better to "back into the known" — a static parking slot — rather than backing into moving traffic.
But it would also mean backing into a confined area rather than into the wide-open space of a traffic lane, requiring a set of skills similar to parallel parking but different enough to be challenging initially.
Currently, the stretch of Dean Keeton between Red River Street and San Jacinto Boulevard has six traffic lanes, a center median and free parallel parking on each side of the street.
Under the city's plan, the 2,000-foot-long stretch would instead have the reverse angle parking, bike lanes in each direction and four traffic lanes. Under the plan, the city would install parking pay stations like the ones in various places downtown.
"If it works on this pilot project, which I think it will, then we'll contemplate how we put it on streets without center medians," said Robert Spillar, city transportation director.
The concern is that without a median, people going one direction would turn left and park facing toward the curb on the other side. Backing out in that circumstance would be extremely dangerous, Spillar said.
In a July 24 memo to the Austin City Council on the pilot plan, Assistant City Manager Robert Goode said parking capacity will increase from seven spaces per 150 feet to 12 spaces over that interval, a 71 percent increase. The memo also says that UT plans to install back-in parking on some campus streets.
Jeri Baker, assistant director of Parking & Transportation Services for UT, said the likely candidates are San Jacinto and Robert Dedman. Though no date for the change has been set, Baker said it would occur after the city has completed the switch on Dean Keeton.
Advocates for reverse-angle parking make several arguments:
It's safer to pull into traffic pointing forward, with the driver getting a clear look to the left for oncoming traffic.
It's safer for passing bicyclists. While a cyclist would lose the advantage of seeing brake lights of a car backing out, the driver in a reverse-angle parked car would be less likely to pull out and hit a bicycle.
Given the position of opened doors in a reverse-angle parked car, children or dogs exiting would be funneled toward the sidewalk rather than toward passing traffic.
A trunk adjacent to a sidewalk is safer to unload than one thta is facing traffic.
"Statistically it's much safer to do it than to back out," said Baker, who years ago drove for FedEx.
"And bicyclists will really like it because you get that eye contact," Baker said.
Salt Lake City, Washington, Seattle and Portland, among other cities, already have reverse-angle parking in places.
A 2005 study of accidents in Pottstown, Pa., before and after reverse-angle parking was installed showed a slight decrease in overall accidents. Injuries from accidents also declined from 38 over an 18-month period with parallel parking to 20 over the first 18 months of reverse-angle parking, a 47 percent decrease.
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Some things about this plan seem promising (it will cut down on door accidents for one), but I'm still concerned about the visibility of the cyclists as the cars come out of the space, and more importantly as they back into those spaces, essentially reversing the wrong way onto the bike lane.
I'd really like to see a plan to reverse the traditional relationship between the parking lane and the bike lane, so that the bike lane is protected from the lane of traffic and unaffected by cars parking. The only downside would be the convenience of access and egress, but I believe it could be accomplished by opening up a sort of funnel lane at the beginning and end of a block (which would also give warning to cars turning that they need to watch out for cyclists). I know it may seem strange, but the old model isn't working.
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How isn't the `old model' working?
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http://www.statesman.com/news/content/n … rking.html
"And bicyclists will really like it because you get that eye contact," Baker said.
Drivers make eye contact and then proceed to pull out in front of me all the time. Why am I supposed to like this?
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The old model isn't working because riding in a door zone can result in fatalities, buses often edge into bike lanes squeezing cyclists toward parked cars, city streets are typically designed to accommodate one type of transportation only—fast moving non-mass transit automobiles, and novice riders are not equipped to share the same roadway with two-ton vehicles moving at 35 miles per hour buffered only by a painted line. The objective is to get more people on bikes, not scare them off. One way to do that would be to provide cushion between the bicycle lane and heavy traffic. I'm not saying reversing the relationship between the bike and parking lanes is the answer (I have my concerns), but I am confident that there is a better way to accommodate cyclists than what's currently being done.
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My parents work for an insurance company and probably 10 years ago they sent out a memo stating it was safer to back into a spot rather than pull in forwards. The theory is that reversing in your vehicle is significantly more dangerous than driving forward. If you back into a spot first, the length of time between your view of any obstacles (e.g. children, other cars, shopping carts) and reversing into that space is just a few seconds. When backing out of a parking spot you generally approach the car (and take stock of obstacles), get in, sit down, arrange your purse/coffee, get out the keys, and shift into reverse. In that case, the time between your seeing the space you are going to back into and the action of reversing the vehicle is much longer, maybe even a few minutes.
The hope with reverse-angle parking is that the car would see the cyclist as s/he drove past and wait. That has got to be better than a car slowly backing out blindly.
I'm excited for the new parking concept. I was visiting Salt Lake last month and they have the smallest signs diagramming how to use the space. Hopefully Austin will find a better way to educate potential parkers.
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The Daily Texan has a supportive editorial on the reverse-angle parking:
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/opinion … -1.1787743
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Another thing that planners need take into consideration on this issue is extended vehicles. An extended cab F350, for instance, is going to cause some problems if the plan does take them into account. The parking spaces need to either be long enough to accommodate them, or they need to be prohibited from using those parking spaces (and such a rule needs to be enforced). Otherwise bicyclist will be forced out into the road, which can be worse then no bike lane at all because automobile drivers assume cyclists will have their own lane of traffic.
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That's a great point Emil. South Congress, especially around Elizabeth, suffers from car hindquarters poking into the bike lane. Long vehicles, or vehicles that are only partially pulled into a parking space, force cyclists out into the flow of automobile traffic. Angled parking spaces would benefit from a painted "lid" to limit intrusion into bike lanes. Would motorists would respect those markings? Would/could police give tickets for parking over such a line?
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